Cane Toads: The Conquest (2010)

A documentary horror film about the environmental devastation left in the wake of the giant toads' unstoppable march across Australia.

Director:

Mark Lewis

Writer:

Mark Lewis

Stars:

Henry Richards, Neil Young

Cast

Credited cast:
Henry Richards	...	Dead bogan
Neil Young	...	Police Officer Bartlett

Storyline

A documentary horror film about the environmental devastation left in the wake of the giant toads' unstoppable march across Australia.

---

Plot Keywords:

giant | 

---

Genres:

Documentary | Comedy

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for disturbing images, language including drug references, and brief smoking

Did You Know?

Connections

Follows Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (1988)

User Reviews

A charming and eccentric documentary

A charming, oddball documentary that charts the progress of an invasive species of Central American toad across Northern Australia and the experiences of the townspeople it encounters along the way.

Introduced to Queensland in the 1930s in an attempt to alleviate the blight of the cane beetle which was ravaging the crops of the regions' sugar cane farmers; the cane toad, in a manner all too painfully predictable, manifestly failed to live up to its billing as miracle cure for the farmers' ills, but rapidly became a fast spreading pest in its own right.

Mark Lewis's film traces the history behind the original introduction, and then follows the invading force, mile by mile, and year by year, in its unstoppable march across the continent, whilst intercutting the stories of a cross-section of experts, officials, and shall we say... "locals" caught up in its path.

If all this sounds like a job for the David Attenborough, that's understandable, but you'd be missing the point. There is real environmental science to be learned here, to be sure, but Cane Toads: The Conquest treads this ground lightly, offering an easily digestible sprinkling of facts that could comfortably be crammed into a fifteen minute PowerPoint session. What it delivers in spades is an understated, blackly comic mix of horror parody and absurdist social docu-drama as we meet the wonderful parade of folks who paint them, stuff them, pet them, curse them with Old Testament wrath and launch them from home made rockets!

Sometimes fascinating, and frequently funny, this is less a film of amphibious analysis and more an affectionate portrait of Australians in all their eccentric glory.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA Australia

Language:

English

Release Date:

May 2011 (Australia)

Also Known As:

Cane Toads: The Conquest 3D

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$61,450

Company Credits

Production Co:

Radio Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

85 min

Color:

Color